It can be hard to measure the size of someone’s ego. But not that of venture capitalist Tom Perkins.
His ego measures precisely 289.1 feet long and is named the Maltese Falcon, a new class of super yacht.
Perkins co-founded in 1972 what is now Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the most successful VC firms in the world. At one point, Perkins was a director of 14 portfolio companies, three of which he chaired and which were traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
He has built and restored other boats before, but nothing like the Maltese Falcon. Through trials and tests over five years, the Falcon has become a technological breakthrough and an efficient modern marvel right out of Star Wars.
She boasts three free-standing 192-feet tall masts that weigh 25 tons apiece, rotate to accommodate wind angle and are made of carbon fiber to eliminate metal fatigue.
“Except for the American Air Force, I purchased the most carbon fiber of anybody ever,” Perkins told CBS’s 60 Minutes in November.
The Falcon’s rigging is a revolutionary system called DynaRig that allows 26,000 square feet of sail to be set with the touch of a button in five minutes, a job that usually would take an hour and 80 deckhands. As for its cost, Perkins would only say that the Falcon was more than $150 million, but less than $300 million.
The Perini Navi-built ship is the world’s largest clipper, the kind of swift vessel that transported lucrative cargo during the golden age of seafaring in the 19th century.
“I like to sail fast,” Perkins told Yachting Magazine, “and there are two ways to do that: go light or go long. I went for long and kept the boat as light as possible. In strong winds I think this boat can beat Jim Clark’s Athena and Joe Vittoria’s Mirabella V. With all that sail area she’ll fly upwind and I may go after some of the old clipper ship records.”
The Falcon also has two 1,800-horsepower engines (top speed: 19.5 knots), three decks, 11,000 square feet of luxurious living space and a crew of 20 that includes a gourmet chef. And its sophisticated computer software, designed by Perkins himself, makes sailing the behemoth such a breeze that anyone can learn to do it in half an hour.
Perkins, 75, has been building and tinkering since he was a young boy, beginning with TV kits and progressing to lasers and genetic engineering. He moved to the West Coast in the 1960s and joined Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett in their early years.
Perkins helped to cement over northern California orchards to build today’s Silicon Valley. While at Hewlett-Packard he founded United Laboratories, which made low-cost lasers and made Perkins a millionaire while he was still in his 30s. He left Hewlett-Packard, but didn’t venture too far away. (He remained an HP director until 2006, playing important roles in the ouster of both Carly Fiorina and Patricia Dunn.)
Venture firm co-founder Eugene Kleiner and Perkins invested in such start ups as Genentech, where their initial $250,000 investment helped create a company now worth more than $20 billion.
To date, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has launched 475 companies, including AOL, Netscape, Google, Amazon, Sun, Intuit and VeriSign. The firm’s companies, 167 of which went public, have created about 275,000 jobs. The Economist calls Perkins one of American venture capital’s founding fathers.
Like his ex-wife, romance novelist Danielle Steel, Perkins wrote a steamy novel titled Sex and the Single Zillionaire, which was edited and published by the controversial Judith Regan in 2006. And he recently released his autobiography, Valley Boy: The Education of Tom Perkins.
Perkins’ own favorite novelist, naturally, is Patrick O’Brian, author of the Master and Commander series of British naval historical novels.
The insurance adjuster’s son, who once dreamed of becoming a TV repairman, makes no apologies for the trappings money can buy—the super yacht, his moated medieval castle in England, fine car collection or $20.5 million Belvedere estate.
Proudly spelled out on the Falcon’s pennant is what sums up Perkin’s fairytale life: “Rarely does one have the privilege to witness vulgar ostentation on such a grand scale.”
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2 Comments
#1. Noemi Eugenio 12.17.2007
Very informative
#2. Cathy Del Rosario 12.17.2007
This writer has done justice to Tom Perkins life story and achievements. The article is very well thought of, researched and has informative details.
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